Tag Archives: History

James Douglas (Aaron Taylor-Johnson): I serve Robert Bruce; join us to free our land.

Outlaw King begins with the beautiful shot of a candle burning which I believe is symbolic in the way it represents the continuing fire burning within the Scottish people to revolt against the occupying English army. This symbol could be likened to the context of Scottish Independence today in modern politics with Scotland’s candle still burning…..

How did celebrating Christmas become so popular? It certainly wasn’t always so. When I was young, everyone in Scotland worked on Christmas day. New Year was the time for celebration.

If we look back beyond the Victorian period, Christmas was just another day. Homes were not decorated except for a few sprigs of mistletoe and holly usually draped around the doors and windows. The peasant in his hovel and the rich man is his mansion had virtually the same decorations. Some rich men realised that this could lead to the poor men having pretensions; they might even believe they were equals- God forbid. The rich men commissioned paper decorations to be designed and hung from the walls to the ceiling. The poor could not afford to compete with such luxuries, of course, and so the natural status of rich and poor was reestablished. Continue reading “Christmas Special” »

When the first world war ended in 1918, the number of soldiers killed was beyond comprehension. This was the first truly global war in history. After previous wars, the dead were left on the foreign field, which meant that grieving relatives did not usually have a grave to visit. The scale of the killed meant that millions of families in france, Britain, America, and of course Germany, did not have a focal point for their grief. Continue reading “Lest We Forget” »

Injured in a Soviet tank while fighting the Germans in World War II, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was sent to a Soviet hospital. He had seen the success the Germans had with their Blitzkrieg warfare firsthand, and Kalashnikov devoted his life to building a firearm that would defend the Motherland from the Germans. Kalashnikov ingeniously visualized a firearm that was simpler than the rest of the guns used at the time, that were trying to be complex and high-tech. The AK was the complete opposite of these guns.Continue reading “The History of the AK-47” »